Woman kidnapped by Hamas at music festival confirmed dead by family
A young woman who was kidnapped by Hamas and paraded half naked on the back of a truck is dead, her family has said.
Shani Louk, 22, was attending the Supernova music festival during the Hamas incursion of Israel on October 7 which saw around 1,400 people killed and around 200 taken as hostages.
There was hope Shani could be rescued alive as it was thought she could be in hospital in Gaza – but her mother, Ricarda, has now told German news outlets that her daughter is ‘no longer alive’, MailOnline reports.
Ricarda said on RTL/ntv: ‘Unfortunately we got the news yesterday that my daughter is no longer alive.’
Read the latest updates on the Israel-Hamas war on our live blog
Shani’s sister Adi posted on Instagram, announcing ‘with great sadness the death of my sister’.
The exact circumstances of Shani’s death are not yet known, and it’s also not known where her body was found.
Her motionless body was paraded on the back of a truck by Hamas gunmen after the festival attack near Kibbutz Reim.
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Hamas previously claimed the body was an IDF soldier, but Shani’s family disputed this, pointing to their daughter’s distinctive leg tattoos.
Her boyfriend, Mexican national Orión Hernández Radoux, is also believed to have been kidnapped – and ‘threatening’ texts were sent from his mobile phone.
Shani is German but grew up in Israel and reportedly never lived in Germany. Her family had blasted the German government for ignoring their pleas for help after they were told she was still alive in Gaza.
Louk’s aunt Orly Louk and her uncle Wilfried Gehr pleaded with the German government in a television interview on the programme ‘ZDF heute’ days after her kidnap.
They said: ‘We’ve been begging the German government to help for three days now.
‘We are unsettled and totally disappointed that the federal government does not feel responsible. One from the foreign office said he doesn’t have time because they have to rebook flights. That makes me so angry.’
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